As hurricane season
approaches, the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is taking weather
forecasters into nearly uncharted waters.

The Gulf is a
superhighway for hurricanes that form or explode over pools of hot
water, then usually move north or west toward the coast. It's now the
site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history and along the general path
of some of the worst storms ever recorded, including Hurricane Camille,
which wiped out the Mississippi coast in 1969, and Hurricane Katrina in
2005.

The season officially starts Tuesday, and although
scientists seem to agree that the sprawling slick isn't likely to affect
the formation of a storm, the real worry is that a hurricane might turn
the millions of gallons of floating crude into a crashing black surf.

"They
are going to destroy south Louisiana. We are dying a slow death here,"
said Billy Nungesser, president of coastal Plaquemines Parish. "We don't
have time to wait while they try solutions. Hurricane season starts on
Tuesday."

Those worries have only intensified as BP has failed
time and again to stem the flow of oil gushing from the blown-out well.

The
company's "top kill" effort to plug the well with mud and seal it with
cement was the latest in a string of failures to ease the spill. Another
solution — a cap similar to an earlier one that failed — is in the
works, but won't be tried for at least several days.

Some fear a
horrific combination of damaging winds and large waves pushing oil
deeper into estuaries and wetlands and coating miles of debris-littered
coastline in a pungent, sticky mess.

And the worst effects of an
oil-soaked storm surge might not be felt for years: If oil is pushed
deep into coastal marshes that act as a natural speed bump for storm
surges, areas including New Orleans could be more vulnerable to bad
storms for a long time.

Experts say there are few, if any, studies
on such a scenario.

AP PhotoWorkers clean up oil residue along the beach in Grand Isle, La.

In this "untreaded water ... it's tough to
theorize about what would happen," said Joe Bastardi, chief long-range
hurricane forecaster with AccuWeather.com.

The lone precedent,
experts agree, is the summer of 1979, when storms hampered efforts to
contain a spill from a Mexican rig called Ixtoc 1 that eventually dumped
140 million gallons off the Yucatan Peninsula. Hurricane Henri, a
Category 1 storm, damaged a 310-ton steel cap designed to stop the leak
that would become the worst peacetime spill in history.

Still,
while oil from that spill coated miles of beaches in Texas and Mexico,
tropical storms and unseasonable cold fronts that year helped reverse
offshore currents earlier than normal and drive oil away from the coast.
Storms also helped disperse some of the oil, Bastardi said.

"That's
what I think would happen this time," Bastardi said. "I'm sure a
hurricane would do a great deal of diluting the oil, spreading it out
where the concentrations would be much less damaging."

At least 19
million gallons, according to the latest estimates, have leaked from
the seabottom 5,000 feet below the surface since the April 20 explosion
of BP PLC's Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11. Syrupy oil has crept
into Louisiana's marshes, coating plants, killing some birds and
threatening wetlands.

BP has been scrambling for a way to stem the
flow of oil. The most promising solution — but still without any
guarantees — is the drilling of a relief well that has been ongoing. But
that one be completed until at least sometime in August.

By Aug.
1, even under the best-case scenario offered by federal scientists,
there could be some 51 million gallons of oil that has spilled into the
Gulf — five times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska's
coast in 1989.

If all that oil were put into gallon milk jugs, the
jugs could be lined up and span a round-trip between Salt Lake City and
New York City. Under the worst-case scenario presented by federal
scientists, it could be twice that at more than 100 million gallons.

The
threat to the marshes could have implications lasting well beyond this
hurricane season. Louisiana already has lost huge swaths of coastal
wetlands in recent decades, and the oil is a major threat to the
long-term viability of that delicate ecosystem.

If the plants that
hold the marshes together were to die at the roots, the base would wash
away, leaving deeper water and less of a buffer for hurricanes, said
Joseph Suhayda, director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane
Center.

"That would increase the amount of surge inland," Suhayda
said.

Even without considering hurricanes, there is uncertainty
about whether marsh cane and other plants will die to the roots or just
above the surface from this oil spill. If the plants' roots survive,
they could come back over time. If not, the results could be
catastrophic.

"I don't think anybody is going to know precisely.
It depends on the quantity of the oil," said David White, a biological
sciences professor at Loyola University New Orleans.

There is a
chance that a hurricane or tropical storm could offer wetlands a
reprieve from the oil, at the expense of areas farther inland. A storm
surge of several feet, even if it is carrying oil, would pass over the
top of the outer, low-lying marshes and disperse the mess in less toxic
amounts, Suhayda said.

But such a storm could also push oil into
freshwater marshes where ducks and geese thrive, White said.

Experts
are predicting a busy hurricane season with powerful storms. Bastardi
predicts seven named storms, five hurricanes and two or three major
hurricanes will have an effect on land this year. Colorado State
University researchers Philip Klotzbach and William Gray predict a 69
percent chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall on
the U.S. and a 44 percent chance that a major hurricane will hit the
Gulf Coast.

Last week, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration predicted 14 to 23 tropical storms this year, including
up to seven major hurricanes.

Hurricane season begins June 1 and
runs through November. Early season storms are uncommon; the busy part
of the season is in August through October. Stronger storms typically
form during this time, like Katrina did in August of 2005.

A
hurricane like Katrina "would be a worst-case scenario" with oil pushed
far ashore, said National Wildlife Federation scientist Doug Inkley.

"It
would suffocate the vegetation. You'd get oiled birds and other
animals," Inkley said. "It's virtually impossible to clean up oil."

And
oil rigs are often evacuated ahead of hurricanes, which would interrupt
those containment efforts.

"It wouldn't take a hurricane to
create a mess, even a tropical storm could cause problems," said William
Hawkins, director of the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf
Coast research laboratory.

A hurricane could also push the oil in a
new direction.

"I think what worries us most is the hurricane
taking oil to areas that probably wouldn't be hit hard otherwise, like
the Florida Panhandle and Texas," said Gregory Stone, director of the
Coastal Studies Institute at LSU.

Even though the oil has yet to
reach Florida, state Attorney General Bill McCollum recently sent a
letter to BP asking the company to assure him it would pay up if a
tropical storm or hurricane pushes oil ashore, which he believes "will
capture the oil in its path and deposit it much further inland."

Bastardi
said that in the near term at least, the storms themselves remain the
chief threat.

"If a Category 3 hurricane is headed to the Texas
Gulf Coast — and this is simply theoretical — I wouldn't be worried as
much about damage from the oil, as the damage from the hurricane,"
Bastardi said.